Seattle Sounders FC and the Puget Sound soccer scene

November 1, 2012 5:56 pm

In addition to some of the Sounders/MLS issues already covered in the posts below, here’s more of what coach Sigi Schmid had to say after training today:

On the RSL game tomorrow: “We’re ready. Salt Lake is a good team, we’re a good team, it’s going to be a good series.”

On the injury status of Eddie Johnson: “We have to see for sure. Chances are he might not be able to play tomorrow, but he went through a lot more today, and he’s up working with [Fitness Coach] Dave [Tenney] right now, so we’ll make the final determination tomorrow before the game. For sure, we think the second game isn’t going to be an issue at all. Tomorrow we’ll have to see.”

On the injury status of Leo Gonzalez and Pat Ianni: “Both getting better, both not available for tomorrow, but they’re both getting better. Leo is actually advancing a little bit ahead of Pat right now.”

On strategy in what projects as a low-scoring aggregate-score series: “The games are always going to be tight in the playoffs. It’s very rare that you see a blowout. You look at the game last night between Chicago and Houston, and Houston jumped on top two-nothing, and you think, ‘Oh, maybe they’re going to pull away,’ but all of a sudden there’s a goal and now it’s a tight game down the stretch. The approach within the game is simply going to be, ‘We want to win the game at home.’ It’s about winning the game at home and at least getting a tie on the road, and maybe winning on the road. If we do that, we advance-doesn’t matter if that’s one-nothing or whether that’s two-nothing. Obviously, for us it depends on the time in the game. Are you up one-nothing with three minutes to go, five minutes to go? Yeah, you might play a little bit differently at that stage, but being up one-nothing after 15 or 20 minutes is probably not going to alter very much what you’re doing.”

On if he likes the fact that there’s a rematch with RSL in the playoffs: “Whoever you’re going to play is going to be a rematch. Whoever you play in the playoffs, you’ve already played three times because we play against the Western Conference, so it doesn’t matter whether that’s RSL or that’s the Galaxy or whether that’s San Jose. I’ve always felt over my career that it’s easier to get prepared and to get up for teams that maybe you haven’t defeated before in the regular season or haven’t done as easily against because your team is going to be motivated and focused…With the games the way they are and as tight as the teams are, getting the team up is not an issue.”

On what he learned from the 0-0 draw with RSL last month: “We were quite happy with the 0-0 draw considering the obstacles we had to deal with in that game. With the number of injuries we had in the back, with Brad Evans playing right back and then center back, playing a man down for 60 minutes, and still creating chances even playing a man down. We’re very pleased with what we did there. We’ve got to build upon that and play with 11 men and do well.”

On pressure to advance: “Pressure to me is an opportunity. You don’t have pressure unless there’s an opportunity, so this is an opportunity for us to do well. The guys have been through it for three years, they know they want to do better than they’ve done in the past three years, and so that’s the pressure that they’re keeping on themselves. As [Fredy Montero] said, it’s a good pressure because it means they want to get after it, they want to go for it, they want to take hold of this opportunity.”

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Don Ruiz has been covering the Seattle Sounders FC since their inception. Here he provides updates on news, views and developments of the South Sound soccer scene. Don also coordinates the UW Huskies Insider blog.

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